Yesterday (March 12, 2015) Dr. Gina Intinarelli, a cardiothoracic nurse from UCSF and I attended the Walt Disney Corp. annual meeting. During the question and answer period, Gina told Disney CEO and Chairman of the Board Robert Iger of the thousands of patients with heart disease and cancer she had care for, that virtually all of these people started smoking as kids, and that the US Surgeon General had concluded that exposure to smoking onscreen caused kids to start smoking...

(top) These volunteer teen movie reviewers with Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails’ Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! power the global effort to get smoking out of kid-rated movies. Here they pose for a group shot at the Feb. 21 Hackademy Awards. While keeping the spotlight on Hollywood’s treatment of tobacco, the “Hacks” have also morphed into a popular dance party where teens from throughout Sacramento learn first hand about the issue, and what they can do about it.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. Feb. 21, 2015 — A California movie awards show this weekend brought out the stars who highlight the issue that Hollywood can still hook kids on tobacco, but along with the bad news also came some good news at the 20th annual Hackademy Awards in Sacramento.

The stars at this Feb. 21 red-carpet gala were more than 40 teen volunteers at the 20th Annual Hackademy Awards, produced by Breathe California of...

Three metrics are used to track smoking in movies overall, by rating and by company:

• percentage of films with smoking;
• tobacco incidents per movie (average for all movies and for movies with smoking);
• in-theater tobacco impressions (an index of total exposure from all movie platforms).

Observations for 2013 and 2014 data

• The share of PG-13 movies with smoking (47%) has not changed substantially since 2010, hovering between 40-50%. However, the share...

Several people have asked for information how much smoking is in Oscar nominated movies this year. My colleague Jonathan Polansky assembled the data, which is available in a downloadable Excel spreadsheet here.

The 2014 set of Oscar-nominated films is somewhat of a departure from recent Oscar years when Oscar-nominated films typically were smokier than movies as a whole. While there are no fewer Oscar-nominated smoking films in absolute numbers, the percentage with smoking is lower...

Our latest Smokefree Movies ad ran in Variety on February 17, 2015 and will run in Hollywood Reporter on February 25, 2015. It introduces and supports the grassroots campaign for Smokefree Moves, ignited by Reality Check New York and the Ontario Coalition for Smoke-Free Movies,

In September, shareholder advocacy organizations announced that they
were filing shareholder resolutions with the major movie studios
regarding the portrayal of tobacco in youth-rated films (covered by the New York Times). Shareholder concerns stem from publication of the...